Stronger and greener together

Stronger and greener together is an environmental co-operation project that includes three football clubs from the city of Lahti, Finland. Since the year 2002 premier league team FC Lahti, junior teams FC Reipas and FC Kuusysi have worked together to carry out environmental issues in their games and tournaments in cooperation with Health Control and Protection Center of the Lahti City Environment Centre.

The aim of this activity is to adopt a pro-environmental way of thinking and to evolve according to the principals of continuous improvement. The most important result from the co-operation of football clubs has been environmental education and awareness raising. The partners have published a leaflet and a poster to introduce the effort of the football clubs in environmental matters and to explain environmental effects of football. Players of the clubs have participated in a campaign which intention was to reduce private driving. Teams arranged carpools and tried to increase the use of public transportation, cycling or walking for practise and game journeys. The environmental managers of the clubs have got environmental training, they have for example visited in a dump as well as the players of FC Lahti.

The most noticeable part of this cooperation are eco-guides in FC Lahti games. Eco-guides sort the spectators waste during the matches and clean the stadium after the match with the ball boys. As a result the areas have maintained clean and tidy. That increased the comfort of the spectators and kept the environment clean. One of our main objectives has been youth education in that area so that they learn to appreciate and take care of the clean environment. Eco-guides are members of the clubs and do their work voluntarily. FC Lahti also arranged a hazardous waste collection in one of their home games. The collection was free and the spectators had a change to get rid of their household hazardous waste while they came in to the match. The collection got excellent feedback from the spectators.

Stronger and greener together -cooperation is trying to improve its achieves by collecting information of harmful environmental effects cause by football, and strive to minimize them systematically. This activity tries to develop the football culture of Lahti to more pro-environmental way by following the principles of sustainable development. Our slogan compresses the main idea of the co-operation: Let's take care of this ball of ours!